2 ms·
I program, operate and two cnc machines, a bridge saw and a line polisher alone. I lift large pieces of stone all day alone. I have to complete a certain amount
by grawprog 8y ago
I program, operate and two cnc machines, a bridge saw and a line polisher alone. I lift large pieces of stone all day alone. I have to complete a certain amount of work in a day no matter how long it takes. Machines fuck up a lot and when they do it puts the whole schedule behind. I have to manually cut things to 1/16" precision. The only person I have to help me has a tendency to make things more difficult. My coworkers speak poor English making communication difficult at times. Setting up new tools is finicky as fuck and I mostly just figure it out as I go and hope for the best. I work with expensive, fragile materials that break when you look at them sometimes. A broken piece can be worth up to $10,000 or more depending on the material. Interior designers are fucking idiots. Customers ask for impossible things and fail to understand they must work within the limits of geology for their products. Miter cutting stone that crumbles at the slightest glance. Writing programs that do things i've never had to do before on expensive material with a day's notice that i'm not even sure is possible at times. My shop's been at least 35°C for the last 3 months now and in the winter it can get down to just above freezing. Digging out trenches full of mud. Carrying hundreds of pounds of sand to load the waterjet. Trying to grap slabs of stone with a crane on a forklift that's tucked in the backcorner of the fucking lot behind god knows how much shit while the forklift is this close to tipping over because the forks are as high as they go and you're on a full forward tilt on a slope.
And I guess the most difficult of all...is spending most of the day alone with my own thoughts and the roar of industrial machinery and constant whine of air polishers working stone.
But I love my job though. Every day is different and I get to make beautiful expensive things every day.